


Setting Sun

by Lasgalendil



Series: Starlight and Song [9]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Death, Dwarf/Elf Relationship(s), Interspecies, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, M/M, One True Pairing, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:46:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2843513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elf loves Dwarf.<br/>Dwarf loves Elf.</p><p>Gimli and Legolas, sixty years later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Setting Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Breaking the Last Rule](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1575707) by [telemachus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telemachus/pseuds/telemachus). 



My love is—not the brightest.

 [Bloody, stupid Elf.]

Daft, sodding creature was born in a cave. Lived in a cave. Has loved me in a cave for sixty years. Ought to know the feel of the ground beneath his feet, hear the earth singing as he does his bloody trees and stars. But no. I have often found him wandering the halls or mines, too bemused or curious—or too bloody Elven—to notice he is not going the damned direction he intends to.

 [But he is an Elf. Perhaps it is different for him. He has forever. He has time to waste.]

 He’s always surrounded by Dwarflings. Young Dwarrows. Wherever he goes. They love him for his bright eyes, long, silken hair (although they’ve learned the hard way not to touch it. He is, after all, MY Elf, and everything he is belongs to me.), his  strange beardlessness, and nonsensical singing. They are young, innocent, born after the Battles that ripped our peoples apart. He is an Elf, I am a Dwarf, and they think not a thing of it. It is a strange time indeed.

[It is too late.]

 …He is also, it must be said, constantly surrounded by the little bastards because I bloody pay them to. Daft, sodding Elf has gotten himself lost in the raw, unfinished mine shafts before. Good fucking luck finding an Elf with no sense of direction or time underground or any idea the dangers. And you’re doubly fucked if said Elf happens to go into reverie about the bloody Sea and doesn’t answer. Damned Elf can stay that way for days if not interrupted. No, no, I won’t risk him again. I pay the lot to look after him. I can’t tell him, can’t tell him how worried sick I am, or sick with envy to see him play with them, touch their tiny hands. Can’t tell him his many friends are bought, even if they would still entertain and be entertained by him for free. Can’t tell him the guilt I feel because I can’t be there, not always, the worry and terrible, lusting jealousy I feel that I can’t lock him away in a dark corner of some forgotten cave for no one else to see, that I begrudge him every laugh, every look, every dance and song done in other’s hearing.

 [My Elf. My pretty, fuckable Elf. Mine.]

He is, in the end, still an Elf.

[My Elf.]

…and bloody, stupid, simple Elf gets lonely.

 My love is—fragile. Tender. But he is not always so considerate.

 I know, I as labor over the forge, hammer the pieces together, craft intricate curves so unlike the work of my kin, that he will not have spent any such time or thought on me.

He forgets. He simply…forgets. Things such as namedays, gifting, Yuletide, days of weeks and months, the passage of time itself. I have found him sitting before a sunset and drinking it in with his eyes, and even after my pipe has been extinguished and the cold of dew has come and gone again he still sits, bathed in starlight. The sun will rise and set again as I sit with him, and suddenly he is with me.

“It’s…it’s later again, isn’t it,” he will murmur.

It’s always later. Always later for us. For me. For him there will always be another sunset, sunrise, starlit sky.

[Time, time, you stupid Elf. You sodding Elf. You have so much of it, and I so little.]

I tell myself not to begrudge him. He is, afterall, a daft, sodding, stupid, singing Elf. And Elves of all kinds are strange folk. His first love is the Sun and Sky, the song of Trees and Sea. What is a Dwarf compared to that?

But the years go by for me whether he counts them not. Seasons pass. The world yet turns.  Young Dwarrows become crafters, miners and soldiers, make young Dwarrows of their own. And my hammer, my strength, my step, my sight…they are not what they used to be. I—I am—not what I used to be. Once there were sweaty, sleepless nights when I could fuck him senseless and screaming when I was young and would never tire. We still have those nights, some times, but they are fewer, fleeting…

[He is still Elf. Still such pretty, fuckable, fuckable Elf.]

[Yet it costs me so much more to love him.]

…And further between.

I tell myself he is an Elf. He does not care if I cannot fuck him as I once did. Indeed, he does not notice. He has always been content to kiss, to comb, to be cuddled, and I tell myself that he will have this—we will have this—until the end.

[But I am a Dwarf. I am not.]

[I yearn to be young, in this at least.]

[It is my nature.]

 I fear. Not for me. Death is, after all, a part of me. I do not resent. But I fear for us. For him. I fear that one day he will slip away in the streams of time as he does and when he emerges, I will not longer be by his side to laugh, to tease, to call him a stupid, sodding Elf for losing himself again, to fuck him out under his bloody Seven Stars he sings so much about…

What will he do then?

What will you do, love? My Elf? My daft, sodding love, what will you do then?

What will you do when I am gone?

I do not fear death. Not for myself. But Mahal help me, I can’t leave the daft, sodding creature alone.

 [He is alone. Always alone. You know this. You do this.]

[Damn you.]

He is Elf. My Elf. He shouldn’t be alone.

* * *

My love—my Dwarf, my delight, my Earthenstar, my everything!—is dying.

I—I had thought—that I might have gotten used to it by now. He has—like all his kind, all his kin, like every Dwarf or Man I have ever seen—been dying since the day he was born.

And yet I am not ready.

He is gone most days. Gone for hours at a time. He sits in Councils, trials, meetings, writes in books, counts piles of gold and grains and bargains struck. He serves as their Lord, their Judge, their King…

But to me he is only Gimli. _Gimli-nîn. i-Chathod-nîn_. My Seven Stars. I—I am selfish, I am his stupid, selfish Elf—I do not understand why I must share him so.

And even when we might be alone, he labors behind his forge. He crafts such gifts—such ridiculous gifts!—and I know, somehow, that not even Dior with the Nauglamír wore such labors of long love, nor Narvi or Telchar craft with such fervor. And he takes such pride—such lust!—to see them against me, watch me wear them—he will fuck me while I am wearing them— (Oh, my Great Bear, my Seven Stars, you are gentler now than you used to be, you tire more, you take less, in this you are so changed!)—and I know, somehow, that when he sees me with his jewels he is loving me—fucking me, fucking me as hard as ever, as a young warrior and not an wizened King—still, before the eyes of all.

…This is, I have learned, how a Dwarf says “I love you.”

[Dwarves are, it must be said, as a whole rather strange.]

But these are not the gifts I would have from him.

 

I do not need your jewels, my love.

I do not need your fucking.

I do not need your words, even though I long to hear them.

 

Time, my love. Time.

Your time is all I ask from you, want from you, need from you, my love, my Dwarf, my everything.

 

…and your time is running out, my earth-bound Star.

Our time is running out.


End file.
